A Promise of Thunder

will heal your troubled souls.”
    “I fear it will take more than a baby to cure what is wrong between me and Grady,” Storm said sadly. “In all these weeks I have heard nothing from him. Perhaps all he ever wanted from me was my homestead. But he can’t have it,” Storm said fiercely. “I’d sell it before I’d leave it to him.”
    “Has my daughter caused this conflict between you and Thunder?” Sweet Grass asked in a concerned voice. “Jumping Buffalo had little to say about your reason for coming here in Laughing Brook’s place.”
    “I won’t deny that Laughing Brook is part of the problem, but she isn’t what ultimatelycaused the rift between Grady and me,” Storm confided. “I can’t live with Grady unless he gives up his violent ways. I begged him not to participate in that gunfight. I even told him I’d leave him if he did, but he chose to ignore my plea. After he was wounded I changed my mind and would have stayed with him, but he—he didn’t want me. He told me to leave.”
    “That doesn’t sound like Thunder,” Sweet Grass observed with a frown. “Perhaps you were mistaken.”
    “There was no mistake,” Storm said bitterly. “If a mistake was made, he would have come to the reservation and told me so. I left a note telling him where I could be found.”
    Sweet Grass grew thoughtful. “What will you do? You are welcome to stay here with us for as long as you like, but the reservation is no place for a white woman unaccustomed to our ways. Winters are hard, and many of us do not survive. It is especially difficult for babies and small children. If not for Thunder’s father, we would have starved long ago. Each winter and summer he sends us food, blankets, and clothing.”
    “I’ll think of something,” Storm said dispiritedly as she turned away to busy herself with a task that would take her mind away from Grady and the dilemma that faced her.
    Jumping Buffalo looked up from the tedious chore of attaching steel tips to his arrows and stared into the distance, an arrested look onhis rugged features. A man driving a wagon was just entering the village. Shading his eyes against the glare of the sun, Jumping Buffalo stared at the man with an increasing sense of familiarity. Something in the set of his massive shoulders and the way he held his head gave Jumping Buffalo his first clue to the man’s identity. Suddenly a broad smile creased his weathered features and he began to walk briskly out to meet the visitor.
    Strong, capable hands the color of burnished bronze drew the team of horses to a halt beside Jumping Buffalo. The two men looked at each other for the space of a heartbeat before the man in the wagon jumped to the ground and warmly embraced Jumping Buffalo.
    “It has been a long time, old friend.”
    “I have missed you, Swift Blade,” Jumping Buffalo said, thumping Grady’s father on the back in exuberant welcome. “If you have come for your grandson, he is not here.”
    Blade Stryker’s dark eyes betrayed the anguish in his heart. “I didn’t think he would be, but I had to find out for myself. Shannon is beside herself with grief over the boy. If not for you, we would have no word at all about Tim. Nothing has been the same since Grady left the ranch and took Tim with him. Where is my grandson?”
    “Little Buffalo is with Thunder.”
    “Thunder,” Blade repeated, swelling with pride. “He is also called ‘Renegade,’ is he not? Thunder is a fit name for my son, but Renegadebrings him no honor. Even in Cheyenne we have heard of the Sioux renegade who is sometimes called Thunder. Shannon and I are deeply saddened by Grady’s pursuit of violence since Summer Sky’s death. Lord knows, the boy wasn’t brought up like that. Living with the People and learning their customs has been a fine experience for him. What saddens me is the way he has chosen to conduct his life.”
    “Living with anger changes a man,” Jumping Buffalo said cryptically. “Especially a very young man. Thunder was a green youth when he lost Summer Sky. He has changed much from the boy you once knew, Swift Blade.”
    “Shannon and I feared we had lost our only son forever until we recently heard a bit of news that gave us hope where none existed before. I pray it is true. That’s why I’ve come in person this time to deliver food and clothing to the People. I deliberately stayed away before because it was what Grady wanted.”
    “What is it you learned?”
    “When Captain